David Legeno, the British MMA star and movie actor best known as Harry Potter’s lycanthrope nemesis Fenrir Greyback, is dead following a desert hiking outing. He was 50.
His remains were found by two unrelated hikers early Sunday morning “in a remote wash” near Death Valley’s famed Zabriskie Point, according to a statement Friday from the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department.
Officials say Legeno apparently died of “heat-related issues” and there were no signs of foul play. The Inyo County coroner is performing an autopsy to determine the official cause of death.
A former bouncer, with experience in wrestling and boxing, Legeno took up professional mixed-martial arts at age 42 and adopted the ring name of The Enforcer.
He parlayed his fighting skills and imposing body into a movie career, landing bit parts as tough guys in such films as Guy Ritchie’s Snatch(2000) and Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005) before scoring the Potter role, which stretched over the franchise’s final three films.
Greyback, the vicious Voldemort-following werewolf, first terrorized Hogwarts in 2009’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before being defeated by Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom in the climactic battle of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
Legeno, whose credits also included Elizabeth: The Golden Age andSnow White and the Huntsman, is survived by a daughter.
Photo credits: Warner Bros., Alan Howard